"This wonderful book chronicles Brazil's efforts to expand access to AIDS drugs in the face of a challenging and, at times, unforgiving external environment. Flynn's detailed research, including extensive interviews with key players, shows how dynamic interaction between actors in the Brazilian state, civil society, and pharmaceutical industry contributed to the country's efforts to secure 'pharmaceutical autonomy.' Much has been written about Brazil's policies to combat HIV/AIDS. Flynn's book provides fresh insights with its focus on how activist health professionals (sanitaristas), gained prominence in key state agencies, and in doing so promoted a universalistic, comprehensive, and rights-based vision of health." Ken Shadlen, London School of Economics "This wonderful book chronicles Brazil's efforts to expand access to AIDS drugs in the face of a challenging and, at times, unforgiving external environment. Flynn's detailed research, including extensive interviews with key players, shows how dynamic interaction between actors in the Brazilian state, civil society, and pharmaceutical industry contributed to the country's efforts to secure 'pharmaceutical autonomy.' Much has been written about Brazil's policies to combat HIV/AIDS. Flynn's book provides fresh insights with its focus on how activist health professionals (sanitaristas), gained prominence in key state agencies, and in doing so promoted a universalistic, comprehensive, and rights-based vision of health." Ken Shadlen, London School of Economics
"Readers interested in development studies will benefit from this book as Flynn makes an effort to revise the influential literature of dependent development and global capitalism to the current conjuncture of a democratic regime and, arguably, technological capacity in Brazil. This is not an easy task. This field has remained under-researched, and recent attempts of Brazilian social scientists have been published only in Portuguese, unknown to a wider audience. Flynns book offers an opportunity to calibrate development theories, and shows that the pharmaceutical sector is indeed a fertile laboratory." - Elize Massard da Fonseca, The Journal of Development Studies
